If you're going to study at NHL Stenden, then you'll get to use our unique educational concept, Design-Based Education (DBE). You can find out what DBE is all about on this page.
We want to make sure our students have a challenging and inspiring learning environment with contemporary facilities. To make this happen, a number of principles are important to us:
Learning from practical experience
We believe it's important that you are exposed to the practical problems in your chosen fields right from the start of your degree and that you work on current, real-life issues. You work on these issues in Ateliers, groups that bring together students, sometimes from different programmes, and industry. You also get to learn directly from the industry through internships or workplace learning. And if you're studying part-time, you can use your workplace as a learning environment.
Learning from and with each other
Students differ from each other in terms of their qualities, experiences and cultural background. By working together to find solutions for current issues, you can make use of these differences and learn from each other, drawing from each others' interpretation and perception of a situation. You form a learning community in ateliers that bring together students, lecturers and the professional field. The ateliers are often interdisciplinary so not only is a problem then seen from different perspectives but the solution is more complete.
Attention to your personal and professional development
Together we want to create a learning environment in which you develop as a person and a professional. An environment in which you are known and your achievements recognized. Our teachers are professionally competent, and trained to also pay attention your learning process, to coach you and give you frequent feedback. We limit the number of tests you have to sit.
Our educational concept has five interrelated facets.
You will work together on real-life issues from the start and learn from and with each other. You will work a lot with the professional field and increasingly with students and researchers from other programmes.
You will learn to work according to an iterative design process, i.e. step by step and with increasing insights leading towards an optimal result with room for experimentation, prototyping and creativity. You optimize your solution by testing prototypes in practice.
You develop your international and intercultural competences by working with international students or in an international or intercultural setting, so that you learn to look at an issue from different perspectives. If you wish, you can carry out part of your studies abroad with one of our foreign partners.
You will develop your learning skills, allowing you to take charge of your development even after your studies. You contribute to meaningful solutions for societal issues.
We encourage you to discover your own talents and develop your own personal and professional identity. You get given more and more room to shape your own learning path.
To get a idea of what studying is like using our educational concept Design-Based Education (DBE), check out this video:
Student experience Eva Kollmannsberger
Find out what students think of working with Design-Based Education (DBE)? Our Creative Business bachelor student Eva Kollmannsberger from Germany explains in this video how DBE is implemented in her study programme.
These are the benefits of DBE:
- You get to work with current issues from the professional field right from the very beginning of your course
- You work in ateliers with students, lecturers and clients from your chosen field
- There's room for experimentation, prototyping and creativity
- You get to discover where your talents lie and strengthen your own learning process
- You get to expand your horizons through our extensive international network of partners